1. Prefatory remarks: the Nixon era -- 2. How they get there: court staffing -- 3. Why they get to the supreme court: qualifications and rationalizations -- 4. The first forty years: from George Washington through John Quincy Adams -- 5. The next forty years: from Andrew Jackson to Andrew Johnson -- 6. The balance of the nineteenth century: from Ulysses S. Grant to William McKinley -- 7. Into the twentieth century: from Theodore Roosevelt to Franklin Roosevelt -- 8. The court alters course: F. D. R. and Truman -- 9. The almost immediate past: from Ike through L. B. J.